Second half big for HU

By KEITH CANNON, Special to the Daily Press

The Pirates struggle in the first half, then blow out N.C. A & T.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - After a listless first half, the Hampton University Pirates came out flying in the second half of their Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference game against North Carolina A&T Saturday night.

Quarterback T.J. Mitchell passed for three touchdowns, two of them in a 28-point third quarter, and 210 yards, and the Pirates' defense scored twice as Hampton beat the Aggies 59-14 in front of 12,547 fans at Aggie Stadium. For a long time, it wasn't as easy as that final score indicated.

The Pirates (2-0, 2-0 MEAC) had to overcome their own mistakes — two lost fumbles and a pair of interceptions — and a spirited effort by the Aggies (0-3, 0-1), who entered the game on a 18-game losing streak, the longest in the NCAA's Football Championship Subdivision.

"Any time you win a conference game, it's important," Hampton coach Joe Taylor said. "We ended up with enough players making plays, but we just didn't look as polished as we should be."

The Pirates hung on to a 17-7 lead at halftime but turned the game into a rout in the third quarter, which ended with Hampton up 45-14. Kevin Teel's 70-yard return of the second-half kickoff for a touchdown was the turning point.

"We expected them to kick it short, because they had done that at the end of the first half and caught us off-guard," said Teel, who also caught a 29-yard touchdown pass from Mitchell. "We set it up well and I found an opening."

But, typical of the kind of up-and-down night it was, Teel fumbled the ball away on the Pirates' next possession to set up the Aggies at the Hampton 39. Shelton Morgan fired a 6-yard scoring pass to tight end Michael Christen to cut the lead to 24-14 with 10:46 left in the third quarter.

But the Pirates came back with a 41-yard pass from Mitchell to Jeremy Gilchrist on the second play of the short drive. Mitchell and Gilchrist connected for a 22-yard touchdown pass on the next play. Gilchrist finished with 112 yards on six catches.

Hampton senior defensive end Kendall Langford lumbered 23 yards with an interception with four minutes left in the quarter for a 38-14 lead. It happened just one play after Mitchell had thrown an interception in Pirates territory. Mitchell threw a 29-yard scoring pass to Teel in the last minute of the quarter.

Van Morgan added a 2-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter, and safety Vaughn Mansfield returned a fumble 60 yards for a touchdown.

"At halftime we talked about them not having the energy level that we had in the first game," Taylor said. "We didn't seem to have a lot of focus, and they were playing pretty well."

The Pirates scored their first touchdown with 3:50 left in the first quarter. Mitchell directed a six-play, 66-yard drive ending in a 9-yard touchdown pass to Justin Brown. But the biggest play in the drive was a 41-yard strike across the middle from Mitchell to Teel. Teel raced to the Aggies' 9 and Hampton scored three plays later.

After that, the Pirates began to win the battle of field position. Hampton's defense backed A&T up to its 2 on the next possession, and Gilchrist set Hampton up at the Aggies' 16 with a 26-yard punt return. On third down at the A&T 11, tight end Ernie Lomax pulled in a high pass from Mitchell just across the end line, and Hampton settled for a 28-yard field goal by Carlo Turavani and a 10-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.

The Pirates' biggest mistake of the first half gave A&T a scoring opportunity midway through the second quarter. Mitchell lost control of the ball while fading back to pass, and A&T linebacker Jamison Hedgepath recovered at the Hampton 24. But three plays netted the Aggies 2 yards, and the Pirates partially blocked Michael Caldwell's 39-yard field-goal attempt.

Hampton didn't take long to score again. Morgan romped 47 yards to the Aggies' 30 on the first play of the drive, and he scored on a 6-yard run four plays later for a 17-0 lead with five minutes left in the half.

But that's as good as it got for the Pirates in the first half. The Aggies marched right back with their first touchdown, scoring on a 9-yard pass from Morgan to Ortiz Green with 47 seconds left in the half to end a 78-yard drive. And after some indecision on the kickoff return resulted in the Pirates starting from their own 9, A&T ended the half with an interception by Ihsan Shaheed at midfield.